Gdium Liberty 1000

[Matt Thomas]

I've recently found an inexpensive ($350US) mips64 based netbook for  
sale: the Gdium Liberty 1000.  Getting NetBSD running on it looks fun  
but it needs a framebuffer driver written for it.  Given the lack of  
serial, this will be a bit challenge.  I'd be satisfied with an  
unaccelerated driver (genfb) to start but eventually want an  
accelerated fb driver.

If you're interested, please me let know.

I don't think the 1000 has much in common with other hpcmips platforms  
but I can't think of a better place to put it.

[Andy Ruhl]

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Matt Thomas<matt@...> wrote:
>
> I've recently found an inexpensive ($350US) mips64 based netbook for sale:
> the Gdium Liberty 1000.  Getting NetBSD running on it looks fun but it needs
> a framebuffer driver written for it.  Given the lack of serial, this will be
> a bit challenge.  I'd be satisfied with an unaccelerated driver (genfb) to
> start but eventually want an accelerated fb driver.
>
> If you're interested, please me let know.

It's very cool looking. Only 512 megs of memory which is low for a
netbook, but given it's intended purpose it's probably fine (no
Windows in site).

> I don't think the 1000 has much in common with other hpcmips platforms but I
> can't think of a better place to put it.

You could always start with evbmips and then maybe start a new port
for it if it's really that different.

Do you have one then?

Andy

[Matt Thomas]

On Jul 28, 2009, at 5:08 PM, Andy Ruhl wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Matt Thomas<matt@...>  
> wrote:
>>
>> I've recently found an inexpensive ($350US) mips64 based netbook  
>> for sale:
>> the Gdium Liberty 1000.  Getting NetBSD running on it looks fun but  
>> it needs
>> a framebuffer driver written for it.  Given the lack of serial,  
>> this will be
>> a bit challenge.  I'd be satisfied with an unaccelerated driver  
>> (genfb) to
>> start but eventually want an accelerated fb driver.
>>
>> If you're interested, please me let know.
>
> It's very cool looking. Only 512 megs of memory which is low for a
> netbook, but given it's intended purpose it's probably fine (no
> Windows in site).

People have upgraded it to 2GB by replace the 512MB SO-DIMM.

>> I don't think the 1000 has much in common with other hpcmips  
>> platforms but I
>> can't think of a better place to put it.
>
> You could always start with evbmips and then maybe start a new port
> for it if it's really that different.
>
> Do you have one then?

I will in a few days. :)

[zhan han]

On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 8:08 AM, Andy Ruhl<acruhl@...> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Matt Thomas<matt@...> wrote:
>>
>> I've recently found an inexpensive ($350US) mips64 based netbook for sale:
>> the Gdium Liberty 1000.  Getting NetBSD running on it looks fun but it needs
>> a framebuffer driver written for it.  Given the lack of serial, this will be

The framebuffer is SM512 or SM712, i'm not sure, you could use vga
console or looking for source code of siliconmotion drivers for xorg.

It should have a serial there, maybe just pin-outs, and you could get
the linux kernel branch at this link for reference:
http://www.loongson.cn/support/cgi-bin/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=linux-2.6.27;a=tree;f=arch/mips/lemote/lm2f;h=fe1ebe134f60f203d741a8565657ac161694584a;hb=HEAD

>>> a bit challenge.  I'd be satisfied with an unaccelerated driver (genfb) to
>>> start but eventually want an accelerated fb driver.
There are two branches on loongson site:
http://www.loongson.cn/support/cgi-bin/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=siliconmotion/xorg;a=summary
and
http://www.loongson.cn/support/cgi-bin/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=siliconmotion/zvport;a=summary
Please check out and see if its what you want.

>>
>> If you're interested, please me let know.
> It's very cool looking. Only 512 megs of memory which is low for a
If you need to replace the memory stick, you should look at the PMON
codes, I think the memory config is hard coded in.
This link is for 2f dev board, not the Gdium netbook, I think.
http://www.loongson.cn/support/cgi-bin/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=pmon;a=tree;f=Targets/Bonito2fdev;h=5640b2b2a705e9f32232c53ab9c352cf53cb44d0;hb=master
you can find it in start.S under Bonito.
The PMON source on:
http://www.loongson.cn/support/cgi-bin/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=pmon;a=tree;h=master;hb=master

> netbook, but given it's intended purpose it's probably fine (no
> Windows in site).
>> I don't think the 1000 has much in common with other hpcmips platforms but I
>> can't think of a better place to put it.
> You could always start with evbmips and then maybe start a new port
> for it if it's really that different.
> Do you have one then?
> Andy
>

[Matt Thomas]

On Jul 28, 2009, at 5:40 PM, mouse@... wrote:

>> I've recently found an inexpensive ($350US) mips64 based netbook for
>> sale: the Gdium Liberty 1000.
>
> I'm tempted, simply because I believe anyone making non-x86 portables
> should be rewarded. :-)
>
>> Getting NetBSD running on it looks fun but it needs a framebuffer
>> driver written for it.  Given the lack of serial, this will be a bit
>> challenge.
>
> What _does_ it have?  How much of the hardware is open?  I'm wondering
> if we could do console-over-Ethernet or console-over-USB-serial or  
> some
> such initially - or perhaps callouts to ROM code or something.

http://olph.gdium.com/wiki/doku.php/hardware:start

console over usb-serial is seriously twisted but instead I'll have  
someone reword mine to have a real serial console (wiki describes  
what's needed)).

> Does it come with a Windows port, or the manufacturer's own OS, or a
> Linux port, or what?  I can't believe anyone is selling a machine
> without at least pointing customers at an OS to run on it.

Linux.  So those sources should be a useful reference.

[Michael Lorenz]

Hello,

On Jul 28, 2009, at 7:56 PM, Matt Thomas wrote:

> I've recently found an inexpensive ($350US) mips64 based netbook  
> for sale: the Gdium Liberty 1000.  Getting NetBSD running on it  
> looks fun but it needs a framebuffer driver written for it.  Given  
> the lack of serial, this will be a bit challenge.  I'd be satisfied  
> with an unaccelerated driver (genfb) to start but eventually want  
> an accelerated fb driver.
>
> If you're interested, please me let know.
>
> I don't think the 1000 has much in common with other hpcmips  
> platforms but I can't think of a better place to put it.

Do we know what kind of graphics chip the thing uses? Do we have  
documentation? All genfb needs is a linear framebuffer ( which all  
modern chips I've ever seen provide ), an address, width & height in  
pixels, stride in bytes, pixel size in bytes. If we can get that from  
whatever it's running natively you can just hardcode these values to  
have something to start with.
So, yeah, I'd volunteer for the kernel fb and X stuff.

have fun
Michael

[Jonas Sundström]

Michael Lorenz <macallan@...> wrote:
 ...
> Do we know what kind of graphics chip the
> thing uses? Do we have documentation?

SiliconMotion SM502:
http://olph.gdium.com/wiki/doku.php/hardware:sm502

General spec:
http://olph.gdium.com/wiki/doku.php/hardware:start

/Jonas.

[zhan han]

Since says gdium wiki, there is a pmon git on
http://dev.lemote.com/cgit/pmon-gdium.git/.
You can get all the low level codes from the pmon-gdium tar ball.

Directories are:
pmon-gdium-1.4.0/Targets/Bonito2fdev/Bonito/start_sm502.S
and
pmon-gdium-1.4.0/fb/.

Though read the pmon code is a good start, but you definitely will get
confused ;)
Lots of experimental of this or that and never a clean up to the codes.


2009/7/29 Jonas Sundström <jonas@...>:

> Michael Lorenz <macallan@...> wrote:
>  ...
>> Do we know what kind of graphics chip the
>> thing uses? Do we have documentation?
> SiliconMotion SM502:
> http://olph.gdium.com/wiki/doku.php/hardware:sm502
> General spec:
> http://olph.gdium.com/wiki/doku.php/hardware:start
> /Jonas.
>

[Michael Lorenz]

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Hello,

On Jul 29, 2009, at 3:58 AM, Jonas Sundström wrote:

> Michael Lorenz <macallan@...> wrote:
> ...
>> Do we know what kind of graphics chip the
>> thing uses? Do we have documentation?
>
> SiliconMotion SM502:
> http://olph.gdium.com/wiki/doku.php/hardware:sm502
>
> General spec:
> http://olph.gdium.com/wiki/doku.php/hardware:start

Hmm, since the device ships with linux I guess we can be pretty sure  
that Xorg's silicon motion driver supports this particular chip.

have fun
Michael

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